Romanian Adrian Coman and his American-born partner Clai Hamilton had two major reasons to celebrate when they tied the knot last June.

One of course, was their marriage. The other was the historic legal victory they scored when their case before Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) led to the recognition of same sex marriage for the purpose of freedom of movement in the European Union (EU).

The case, challenging current law, represented a significant victory for LGBTQI rights, in particular in Eastern Europe.

The couple had married in Belgium in 2010 and later decided to settle in Coman’s native Romania. But Hamilton was denied residency rights because the civil code does not recognise same-sex marriages. So, they took the matter to the Romanian courts, which referred it to the CJEU.

Romania currently ranks 35th out of the 49 countries assessed by the European region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA-Europe,), in terms of its equality laws and policies.

Romania compares fairly favourably – when it comes to protecting and promoting LGBTQI rights – to many other Balkan states. But there is an apparent disconnect between the Romanian government’s intentions and public opinion.

While the government adopted anti-discrimination legislation in 2000 and decriminalised consensual same-sex relationships the following year, it did an about-face in 2008 when it changed the civil code to ban same-sex marriage and civil partnerships. But 10 years later, referendum voters rejected an attempt to enforce this prohibition at the Constitutional level.

In this, Romania is not alone. Uncertainty over LGBTQI rights manifests in a variety of ways across the Balkan region, a massive swathe of territory stretching across Eastern Europe from Turkey in the south to Romania in the north.

This uncertainty is a breeding ground for further discrimination, the non-implementation of more liberal civil regimes and the official apathy toward the commission of crimes against members of the LGBTQI community.

For example, in 2015, Slovenia’s parliament passed a same-sex marriage bill with a vote of 51-28. But Slovenians disagreed: nine months later, they rejected the new law in a referendum, by a margin of 63% to 37%.

Across the Black Sea from Romania, an incident in Armenia demonstrated the challenges that still lie ahead for LGBTIQ rights in this general part of the world. This week, around 100 demonstrators gathered outside the national assembly in the capital, Yerevan, to protest a speech in parliament by a transgender activist. Lilit Martirosyan’s address at a hearing organised by the United Nations and the Armenian Human Rights Defender’s Office. While fuelled by party politics, the protests were clearly transphobic.

In some places a more liberal legal framework has been established but greater tolerance is not guaranteed. Croatia passed the Life Partnership Act in 2014, granting same-sex couples the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts – except for adoption, although a parent’s life partner can become a child’s partner-guardian.

This was despite an opinion poll the previous year, showing that almost 60% of Croats thought that marriage should be constitutionally defined as being between a man and a woman. This raises questions around the enforceability and public acceptance of the Life Partnership Act.

Greece presents a more extreme example of public opinion rising against political decisions. Despite its parliament approving civil unions for same-sex couples in a landslide 194-55 vote four years ago, when polls showed that only a third of citizens supported such a reform, public attitudes toward the LGBTQI community remained hardened.

In its 2019 review of LGBTI rights, ILGA-Europe reports the prevalence of homophobic and transphobic speech in Greece, in particular by clergy. It notes also the an International LBTQI youth and student organization ranks Greece as one of the least inclusive countries around LGBTQI issues in education.

The ILGA-Europe review also describes the shocking 2018 murder of LGBT+ and HIV activist Zak Kostopoulos, who was fatally beaten by an Athens jewellery shop owner, a second person and police officers.

Despite videos of the incident being made public, the media made later-discredited claims that he had been trying to rob the shop and had been under the influence of drugs.

The other side of the coin is where authorities, even when they are not backed by legislation, foment hatred and violence toward the LGBTQI community – as in Turkey, where homosexuality has been legal since 1858, although sexual orientation, gender identity and same-sex relationships are not recognised in civil rights laws.

In November 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared the empowering LGBT people to be “against the values of our nation”. A week later, the governor’s office in the capital, Ankara, banned all LGBT cultural events in that city.

Deep-seated prejudice towards the LGBTQI community in the Balkans – in contrast to Western Europe, where studies and polls consistently show more liberal attitudes – have been further inflamed by the influx over several years of refugees from conflict zones in the Middle East.

LGBTQI refugees from countries like Iraq and Syria escape sexual orientation or gender discrimination and persecution in their homelands, only to face it once again in the Balkans.

Fearful, many do not report their sexual orientation or gender identity when applying for refugee status. This invariably leads to their applications being rejected and them being repatriated to their home countries.

If they stay, or move to another country, their illegal status means they are often forced to support themselves through high-risk occupations such as sex work. And because they enjoy no legal rights, they are at risk of official persecution and have no recourse should they be victimised by the general public.

The win for LGBTQI rights in the Coman-Hamilton judgment is without doubt important, and it stands proudly among other small victories in the Balkans region. But what positive changes there have been are incremental, and often negated by continued prejudice and a lack of will to implement reforms.

Until public and official attitudes undergo a paradigm shift in every one of the Balkan states – irrespective of whether or not their civil regimes are currently transforming – the region’s LGBTQI community will continue to be denied basic human rights and disproportionately suffer indignity, discrimination and violence.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/05/lgbtqi-rights-balkans-perpetual-struggle/feed/0Sex Education and Women´s Healthhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/sex-education-womens-health/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sex-education-womens-health
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/sex-education-womens-health/#respondMon, 04 Feb 2019 16:13:38 +0000Jan Lundiushttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=159971Is there a connection between sex education, gender equality and promiscuity? On this website, Fabiana Fraysinnet recently denounced a Brazilian crusade against sex education conducted by conservative and religious sectors. Such initiatives are common in several other countries, where politicians and religious leaders accuse sexual education of blurring boundaries between male and female and thus […]

Is there a connection between sex education, gender equality and promiscuity? On this website, Fabiana Fraysinnet recently denounced a Brazilian crusade against sex education conducted by conservative and religious sectors. Such initiatives are common in several other countries, where politicians and religious leaders accuse sexual education of blurring boundaries between male and female and thus foment homosexuality and transsexualism, as well as a moral relativism undermining family structures and adherence to religious guidance and dogma.

An opposite position is reflected by the personal motto of the Norwegian-Swedish journalist and socialist agitator Elise Ottosen-Jensen, who in 1933, together with a number of radical medical doctors founded the Swedish Association for Sexualiity Education (RFSU):

I dream of the day when every new born child is welcome, when men and women are equal, and when sexuality is an expression of intimacy, joy and tenderness.

Through her work as a journalist Elise Ottosen-Jensen had gained insights into the everyday life of working-class women. Scarce resources, hard work and domestic violence were common problems. Her conviction that the many unwanted pregnancies were a problem for several families and also a threat to women´s health and well-being turned her into an outspoken promotor of contraceptives and an agitator against the so-called sex laws, which prohibited use of contraceptives and penalized homosexuality. Until 1938 Swedish laws forbade the use of, information about, as well as distribution and marketing of contraceptives and it was not until 1944 that homosexuality was decriminalized. In 1955, sexual education was made compulsory in Swedish schools.

While I studied pedagogy in the 1970s the Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire´s Pedagogy of the Oppressed was obligatory reading for all future Swedish teachers. Freire stated that pupils simply memorized “facts” transmitted by their teachers, maintaining that all education instead ought to problematize what appears to be simple truths and provoke students to “self-determination”. I was taught that the Swedish school was supposed to support the ”development of critically thinking individuals,” able to dispute generally accepted dogmas and opinions.

Sexual education was part of that agenda and connected to gender equality. It was emphasized that all over the world girls and women are facing social, economic and cultural barriers impeding their education and livelihoods and that even more lack comprehensive sexuality education, which serves as a tool for women to take control of their bodies, to plan their future and avoid unintended pregnancy, child-, early- and forced marriages.

Some educators soon developed Freire´s theories into something they labelled as “anti-oppressive education”, i.e. a commitment to empower youngsters from minority groups by making them question norms that determine people’s perceptions of what is “normal”. Such views have increasingly come to influence the current Swedish debate about the rights of people who identify themselves as LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer).

Swedish radicals have recommended that children are given “gender neutral names”, while children´s books address norm changing themes, for example Kalle som Lucia, “Kalle as Lucia”. This particular story is about a boy who wants to be Lucia. In all Swedish schools winter solstice is celebrated by processions headed by a beautiful girl chosen by the pupils to be Lucia, Bringer of Light. While connecting traditional gender roles to normative change, books like Kalle as Lucia are supposed to teach kids that it is OK to be different.

Another Swedish norm changing initiative has been the replacement of the Swedish words for she and he with the neutral hen (from the Finnish gender neutral hän). Such efforts have been criticized as “ridiculous”, or even worse – as a Government supported scheme to blur the difference between the sexes, described as an integrated part of efforts to secure gender equality, which in reality is an entirely different endeavour. Gender equality aims at fomenting equal access to resources and opportunities for people of different sex, it does not at all seek to abolish biologically conditioned differences between women and men.

People who use bio-determinism as an argument against gender equality, claiming that promoting equal rights for women and men is a violation of religious and natural laws, ignore the fact people are able to change. John Stuart Mill, the 19th century economist and promoter of women’s emancipation, emphasized the dangers of bio-determinism:

Of all the vulgar modes of escaping from the consideration of the effect of social and moral influences upon the human mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and character to inherent natural differences.

1

We have over time developed social patterns that resist aggression and selfish behaviour. While living close together, humans have used their superior brains to comprehend how violence and excessive dominant behaviour are intrinsically bad for the survival of our specie. Humans are able to change their habitats, instead of exclusively adapting to them, something that is due to the fact that human beings are genetically programmed to make use of reason, culture and free will, an endeavour supported by education aimed at promoting openness, mutual support and compassion.

Ignorance about reproductive health is currently threatening to increase rates of teen pregnancy, communicable diseases, misogyny and abuse of girls and adolescents. Attacking gender equality and sex education in the guise of opposition to norm criticism may prove to be harmful to the entire society and not the least the wellbeing of women, whose health is threatened by the bigotry of religious leaders, harmful traditions and prejudiced politics.

Some years ago, I visited Andean communities, interviewing women about their life situation. I had previously found that as a foreign man one of the best ways of approaching reticent women in rural settings had been to do so in the company of a local midwife. What worried me during my encounters with Andean women was their often poor state of health and I assumed it was the midwife´s presence that made them reveal their pains.

Several suffered from vaginal prolapse and other conditions affecting the female reproductive system. Ailments caused by congenital malformations, or difficulties during pregnancies that came too early in life and often had been far too frequent. Women´s suffering could also have been a consequence of difficult deliveries, poor hygiene, deficient preventive healthcare, hard work, badly treated infections and venereal diseases. Disease affecting productive organs were generally suffered in silence, considered to be shameful since everything connected with female bodies was burdened by prejudices, chauvinism and religious narrow-mindedness. My meeting with these women made me realize that gender equality is not only an issue of equity between men and women, but physical differences between males and females have to be addressed as well.

We are able to change our destiny for the better by liberating ourselves from shackles of intolerance supported by murky traditions and misinterpreted biological determinism. This is one reason to why gender equality, and not the least – unrestricted access to healthcare and sex education for both women and men, benefit the entire mankind. Fear of male power loss and an assumed spread of homosexuality cannot be allowed to forbid sex education and become an obstacle to women´s health and wellbeing.

1Collected Works of John Stuart Mill: Principles of political economy. University of Toronto Press. p. 319

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/sex-education-womens-health/feed/0Bullying is an “Infringement” on Children’s Rightshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/01/bullying-infringement-childrens-rights/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bullying-infringement-childrens-rights
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/01/bullying-infringement-childrens-rights/#respondThu, 24 Jan 2019 11:36:49 +0000Tharanga Yakupitiyagehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=159781While rates have decreased, school violence and bullying is still a major global issue, contributing to lasting impacts on youth, a United Nations agency found. During the 2019 Education World Forum, taking place in the United Kingdom, the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) released a report analysing global trends on school violence and […]

]]>The post Bullying is an “Infringement” on Children’s Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.
]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/01/bullying-infringement-childrens-rights/feed/0LGBT Violence and Discrimination is “Disastrous”http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/10/lgbt-violence-discrimination-disastrous/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lgbt-violence-discrimination-disastrous
http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/10/lgbt-violence-discrimination-disastrous/#respondSat, 27 Oct 2018 12:03:44 +0000Tharanga Yakupitiyagehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=158395Transgender and gender-diverse people are facing unprecedented levels of violence and discrimination around the world and states must act to ensure they are not left behind, said a United Nations rights expert. In a report presented to the U.N. General Assembly, U.N. Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and […]

Two marchers in Taiwan's annual LGBT Pride March in Taipei City in this picture dated 2013 affirm that "I am proud to be gay; I'm not a sex refugee!" United Nations independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity Victor Madrigal-Borloz exsaid levels of violence towards and the lack of recognition of gender identities, especially transgender people, stating that the situation is “disastrous.” Credit: Dennis Engbarth/IPS

By Tharanga YakupitiyageUNITED NATIONS, Oct 27 2018 (IPS)

Transgender and gender-diverse people are facing unprecedented levels of violence and discrimination around the world and states must act to ensure they are not left behind, said a United Nations rights expert.

In a report presented to the U.N. General Assembly, U.N. Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity Victor Madrigal-Borloz expressed concern over the levels of violence towards and the lack of recognition of gender identities, especially transgender people, stating that the situation is “disastrous.”

“These persons are suffering levels of violence and discrimination that are offensive to human conscience,” he said during a press conference.

Alongside persistent discrimination, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities continue to be subject to violence simply because of their identities.

In the United States, at least 22 transgender people have been killed so far in 2018, many of them women of colour.

Most recently, 31-year-old Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier was stabbed to death in Chicago. Her death puts this year on track to match, if not surpass, the 28 murders of transgender people in 2017.

Brazil has one of the world’s highest rates of LGBT-targeted violence as 2017 saw a record 445 reports of murders of LGBT Brazilians. Among them is Dandara dos Santos, a transgender woman who was tortured, beaten, and shot in northeastern Brazil.

Many fear that such violence will only get worse under the looming presidency of Jair Bolsonaro who has said homosexuality is “an affront to the family structure” and that it can be cured with violence.

“Clearly, criminalisation is creating a situation where persons are not only not protected, but actively persecuted on the basis of their gender identity,” Madrigal-Borloz said.

He also noted that LGBT communities are further marginalised as they are denied access to services such as education, health, and housing.

Approximately one in five transgender individuals have reported being homeless during their lifetime in the U.S., and an estimated 20-40 percent of homeless youth are LGBT.

Madrigal-Borloz said that this situation is partly attributed to the lack of legal recognition of gender identities.

“The measures adopted to ensure that there is conformity between their self identified gender and the legal recognition are of fundamental importance to prevent violence and discrimination,” he said.

According to a leaked memo obtained the New York Times, the Trump Administration is pushing federal agencies to narrow the definition of sex “on a biological basis” under Title IX—a civil rights law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

It could be enforced in a way that allows discrimination against transgender people in access to employment, health, school, and housing.

The U.N. delegation to the U.N. has also reportedly been seeking to remove references to “gender” in U.N. documents, another move signalling the government’s rollback of protections and recognition of transgender people.

Similar actions can be seen around the world, including in Hungary where prime minister Viktor Orban banned gender studies programs at universities.

“The government’s standpoint is that people are born either male or female, and we do not consider it acceptable for us to talk about socially constructed genders rather than biological sexes,” a spokesperson for the prime minister said.

However, the has been some progress, said Madrigal-Borloz, whose report highlighted some of the international community’s best practices on discrimination and violence against LGBT communities.

For instance, Uruguay, in recognition of diverse gender identities and the obstacles that transgender people face in exercising their rights under the law, implemented a program designed to help transgender people navigate the law as well as access social security programs and employment opportunities.

In New Zealand, people can choose to have their gender in their passport marked as male, female or a third category based solely on self-determined identity. This also applies to children under the age of 18.

“There is a historical recognition of the fact that a diversity of gender identities have been recognised in all cultures and traditions around the world and that the outlawing or stigmatising surrounding certain gender expressions have more the result of certain processes—in some cases colonial domination and in some cases normalisation based on certain conceptions of gender,” Madrigal-Borloz said.

“But I do believe that there is enough evidence that in longstanding cultural and societal tradition, gender diversity has played a role in all corners of the world,” he added, highlighting the need for the legal recognition of gender identity.

The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also recently said that the organisation must “redouble” efforts to end violations against LGBT communities around the world.

“As we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, let me underscore that the United Nations will never give up the fight until everyone can live free and equal in dignity and rights,” he said.

While the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), globally adopted in 2016, do not explicitly mention LGBT communities, they still highlight the need to include everyone without discrimination.

“There is a situation that requires immediate and prompt action of the state to actually make sure that these persons are not left behind in the spirit of the Sustainable Development Goals,” Madrigal-Borloz said.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/10/lgbt-violence-discrimination-disastrous/feed/0“Outsiders” in Focus at French Film Festhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2018/05/outsiders-focus-french-film-fest/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=outsiders-focus-french-film-fest
http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/05/outsiders-focus-french-film-fest/#respondSat, 19 May 2018 21:10:30 +0000A. D. McKenziehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=155838The usual big-name directors were absent this year from the Cannes Film Festival in southern France, creating space for cutting-edge films from Asia, Africa, small European states, and the Middle East. Most of these films put the focus squarely on stories about outsiders, highlighting issues of exclusion, disability, racism and gender inequality (including in the […]

A scene from the film Rafiki, which was banned in Kenya. Photo courtesy of the Cannes press office.

By A. D. McKenzieCANNES, France, May 19 2018 (IPS)

The usual big-name directors were absent this year from the Cannes Film Festival in southern France, creating space for cutting-edge films from Asia, Africa, small European states, and the Middle East.

Most of these films put the focus squarely on stories about outsiders, highlighting issues of exclusion, disability, racism and gender inequality (including in the film industry). The result was a festival with some of the most engaging movies in the last five years, alongside the trademark glitz.

The winners in the two main categories of the event, which ran from May 8 to 19, exemplified the concentration on the underdog. Manbiki Kazoku (Shoplifters) by Japanese director Kore-Eda Hirokazu won the Palme d’Or top prize, from among 21 films, while Gräns (Border), by Iranian-born Danish director Ali Abbasi, was awarded the Un Certain Regard Prize, beating 17 other movies. The latter category recognizes films that stand out for their originality, and many critics agreed Gräns was remarkable.

“We feel that out of 2,000 films considered by the Festival, the 18 we saw in Un Certain Regard, from Argentina to China, were all in their own way winners,” stated the jury, headed by Puerto-Rican actor Benicio Del Toro.

“We were extremely impressed by the high quality of the work presented, but in the end we were the most moved by … five films” (including Gräns), the jury added

Full of suspense, Abbasi’s movie tells the story of a “strange-looking” female customs officer who has a gift for spotting, or sniffing out, travellers trying to hide their contraband and other secrets, and it takes viewers on her journey to discover who she really is.

We see her experiencing verbal abuse from some travellers, and we slowly discover the exploitation she and people like her have suffered, while also learning about her origins, and seeing her fall in love and deal with appalling crime.

Based on a short story by Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindqvist, and with superb acting, the film combines romance, dark humour and the paranormal to deliver a subtle message about the treatment of people who are different and society’s behaviour towards those most vulnerable, among other subjects.

A second film that won a major award in the Un Certain Regard category also dealt with “difference” and the acceptance of one’s individuality. Girl by Belgian director Lukas Dhont is a first feature about a boy who dreams of becoming a ballerina, exploring the journey of a trans-teen with a passion for dance. Victor Polster, the 15-year-old actor who plays the title role with poignant credibility, won the best actor award, while Girl also won the competition’s Caméra d’Or prize for best first film.

A scene from the film Girl. Photo courtesy of the Cannes press office.

However, Rafiki (Friend), a movie that some critics expected to receive a prize, had to be satisfied with the extended standing ovation it received from viewers at the festival. The film – about love between two young women – is banned in Kenya, despite being the first Kenyan film selected for screening at the festival.

Director Wanuri Kahui said she was moved by the appreciation the film received, telling reporters that people are eager to watch a “joyful” and “modern” African movie, away from the stereotypical images of poverty and disaster.

Regarding the ban, she tweeted in April: “I am incredibly sorry to announce that our film RAFIKI has been banned in Kenya. We believe adult Kenyans are mature and discerning enough to watch local content but their right has been denied.”

Apart from the Palme d’Or winner (about a family of shoplifters), the films that generated widespread buzz in the main competition included Arabic-language Yomeddine, directed by Cairo-born A.B. Shawky, and featuring a leper in Egypt, and BlacKkKlansman, by African-American director Spike Lee, which won the Grand Prix, the second highest honour at the festival.

A scene from the film Yomeddine. Photo courtesy of the Cannes press office.

Yomeddine stood out for its choice of subject and for portraying and employing persons with disabilities. Viewer and British actor Adam Lannon called the film “beautiful and brilliant”, adding that it was “excellent” to see “actors with disabilities working on screen”.

The film’s main character, Beshay, is a man cured of leprosy, but he has never left the leper colony where he has been placed by his family since childhood. When his wife dies, he sets out in search of his roots, with his loyal donkey. He is soon joined by an orphan boy named Obama, whom he has been protecting, although he would rather have been alone.

What follows is an uplifting road movie across Egypt, with a series of tear-jerking encounters on the way and echoes of “Don Quixote”. Shawky’s first feature has some flaws in that certain elements seem too predictable, but he scores overall with his appeal for humanity and inclusion.

The director Spike Lee on the set of his film BlacKkKlansman. Photo courtesy of the Cannes press office.

For Spike Lee, anger at racism comes across clearly in his latest film, which is the story of a real-life African-American policeman who managed to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan in Colorado. Lee incorporated recent events in the United States in the movie, particularly the killing of Heather Heyer as she protested a white-supremacist gathering in Charlottesville.

At his main Cannes press conference, Lee slammed the current U.S. administration, in a speech full of expletives. “We have a guy in the White House … who in a defining moment … was given the chance to say we’re about love and not hate, and that (expletive deleted) did not denounce the Klan,” he told journalists.

Gender issues were also raised at the festival, with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements never far from movie-watchers’ consciousness, as is the global scarcity of female directors. Only one film directed by a woman (The Piano by Jane Campion) has ever won the Palme d’Or, and women have long been underrepresented at the directorial level.

During the event, 82 women working in the movie sector took over the famous red-carpeted stairs to protest that inequality. Their number was an indication that since the Cannes festival officially began in 1946, following World War II, just 82 movies by women directors have been selected for competition. In contrast, 1,645 films by male directors have been chosen.

Led by the five women on this year’s competition jury, including jury president Cate Blanchett and American director Ava Duvernay, the protest coincided with the screening of Les Filles du Soleil (Girls of the Sun), a movie by French director Eva Husson about a group of female fighters in Kurdistan.

This was just one of several protest events. A few days later, black women working in the French film industry also denounced the lack of quality roles. Sixteen women who have contributed to a book titled Noire n’est pas mon metier (Being black is not my profession) made their voices heard on the red carpet.

“We’re here to denounce a system that has gone on too long,” said Senegalese-born French actress Aïssa Maïga, who described how black actresses tended to be cast only in certain roles.

Among the three women directors in the main competition, Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki took home the biggest award – the Prix du Jury for Capharnaüm, about a boy who sues his parents for bringing him into the world.

In a moving speech, Labaki called for everyone to do more to protect children and ensure their education. “A loveless childhood is the root of all suffering in the world,” she said.

By the time the festival wrapped up with a performance from singers Sting and Shaggy on May 19 (the same day as the Royal Wedding in England), it seemed that both filmmakers and the public were yearning for lasting change, and different stories.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/05/outsiders-focus-french-film-fest/feed/0#MeToo in the Global Workplace: Time to Connect the Dotshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2018/03/metoo-in-the-global-workplace-time-to-connect-the-dots/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=metoo-in-the-global-workplace-time-to-connect-the-dots
http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/03/metoo-in-the-global-workplace-time-to-connect-the-dots/#respondTue, 06 Mar 2018 10:32:59 +0000Laila Malik and Inna Michaelihttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=154644Laila Malik works with the communications team at the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID). Inna Michaeli is
with the Building Just Economies initiative at AWID

This article is part of a series of stories and op-eds launched by IPS on the occasion of this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8.

Hondurans protest outside a Tegucigalpa hotel where U.S. and Central American officials were negotiating a regional trade pact. Credit: Paul Jeffrey, Courtesy of Photoshare

By Laila Malik and Inna MichaeliTORONTO/BERLIN, Mar 6 2018 (IPS)

Since its explosion onto the social media landscape at the end of 2017, the #metoo movement has continued to gain global traction. Initially centred on powerful Hollywood women breaking decades of silence about sexual abuse and harassment in the industry, the conversation soon spread across global regions and sectors, from #YoTambien in the Spanish-speaking world to #balancetonporc in French. From China to أنا_كمان# in Arabic. From national governments to universities to international development, the stories are grim, and their pervasiveness has been jarring.

But for the majority of women and LGBTQI people, these stories are nothing new.

Individual instances of abuse and harassment are locked firmly in place by prevailing working conditions and an absence of labour rights protection. Across the planet, women’s disproportionately high rates of informal employment and complex production chains prevent them from organizing to protect their rights

Because global feminists and human rights advocates have been fighting for a more just world for decades, and have long noted that those individual instances of abuse and harassment are locked firmly in place by prevailing working conditions and an absence of labour rights protection. Across the planet, women’s disproportionately high rates of informal employment and complex production chains prevent them from organizing to protect their rights.

When they do, they are threatened with violence and union-busting attacks – often by the powerful, mostly North-based, transnational corporations who employ them. Data on the global workplace harassment and abuse of trans and non-binary people is less readily available, but many countries around the world continue not to even recognize trans and nonbinary identities and rights, and International Labour Organization (ILO) research reveals that LGBT people face discrimination in “access to employment and throughout the employment cycle, and can result in LGBT workers being bullied, mobbed, and sexually or physically assaulted”. People who do not conform to traditional gender norms face even more discrimination than those who can “pass”.

While talk in corporate and international development circles about the importance of women’s economic empowerment is on the rise, it often stops at individual income generation or improvement of self-esteem. Meanwhile, governments often refuse to take measures to protect precarious and informal workers – the majority of whom are women – out of fear of losing their competitive advantage to labour markets in other countries.

The situation of Cambodian women who work in the beer industry is case in point. In Cambodia, young women are hired by beer companies to sell as much of the brand as possible. They work long hours in bars, restaurants, and beer gardens late into the evenings, and are paid by commission or by a set salary per month. Some have contracts protected under the Cambodian Labour Code, and some are unprotected informal workers.

Cambodian beer promoters have been organizing since 2006 for a living wage, and to introduce protections against sexual harassment and violence, long working hours and toxic working conditions in bars and restaurants. During that time, more workers have gained formal status, allowing them to benefit from the country’s labour code, and minimum wage standards.

But last year, Cambrew Ltd. – the largest brewery in Cambodia, 50% of whose shares are held by the Carlsberg Group – announced a change in working hours that would force women to leave work two hours later in the evening – despite travel safety and childcare concerns – without consultation with workers.

The company also began offering short-term contracts as a way to discourage beer promoters from joining the union, as well as giving union leaders morning shifts where they cannot make additional wages through overtime or larger sales. Ongoing fear of police brutality and dismissal continue to keep trade union activism and mobilization in check.

In other parts of the world, millions of women work under – and fight – similar conditions, upheld by the same logic. 85% of sweatshop workers are women between 15-25 years old, where stories abound of managers calling women workers into the back of workrooms, trying to touch or grope them and threatening to fire them if they refuse.

Around the world, 1 in every 13 female wage earners is a domestic worker, and only 10% of them are employed in countries that extend them equal protection under national labour laws. About 30% of them work in countries that exclude them from labour laws completely. Basically, the threat and exercise of sexual abuse and harassment of women is the cultural grease that keeps profits flowing efficiently across the globe.

Young Bangladeshi women raise their fists at a protest in Shahbagh. Credit: Kajal Hazra/IPS

Time for binding agreements

But feminists and human rights advocates have been, and continue to mobilize for gender and economic justice. In October 2017, 14 organizations came together to request the integration of a gender approach into a long-awaited international legally binding treaty to hold corporations accountable for human rights abuses.

It would include assessments of the impact of business activities on women’s lives, ensuring that women can get justice in courts and creating conditions that are safe, respectful, and enabling for women human rights defenders. It would challenge corporate impunity and legally oblige businesses to uphold international human rights standards all over the world.

At the same time, the International Trade Union Confederation and others have been mobilizing with a campaign for the International Labour Union (ILO) to adopt a comprehensive convention on violence and harassment against men and women in the world of work. This convention is a step in the right direction – towards transforming workplaces to become safer and dignified spaces for people of all gender identities.

On March 8, International Women’s Day, the intergovernmental working group on the binding treaty will present its report at the Human Rights Council in Geneva – more than 100 years since women garment workers came out to the streets to demand fair working conditions.

Today, working spaces are often still exclusionary, exploitative and unsafe, particularly for women, trans and non-binary people and global south communities, as well as for queer and racialised people, for differently able-bodied people, and for migrant communities. It is time we responded to that long-standing demand for the human rights of all workers to be respected.

No one international treaty will hold all the solution, but it is a reminder that in order to stop violence against women in the workplace, a structural change is needed in our economic and human rights systems, and the struggle is long underway.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/03/metoo-in-the-global-workplace-time-to-connect-the-dots/feed/0How a Venezuelan Living with HIV Could Change the Way Mexico Deals with Refugeeshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2017/12/how-a-venezuelan-living-with-hiv-could-change-the-way-mexico-deals-with-refugees/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-a-venezuelan-living-with-hiv-could-change-the-way-mexico-deals-with-refugees
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/12/how-a-venezuelan-living-with-hiv-could-change-the-way-mexico-deals-with-refugees/#respondThu, 21 Dec 2017 12:03:46 +0000Josefina Salomonhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=153662Josefina Salomon is Media Manager at Amnesty International

Daniel (not his real name), is a Venezuelan living with HIV. Mexico gave him refugee status, based on a humanitarian cause. Credit: Sergio Ortiz/ Amnistía Internacional

By Josefina SalomonMEXICO CITY, Dec 21 2017 (IPS)

As Daniel*, a 26-year-old architect, stood before a visibly exhausted doctor in the main public hospital of the once-idyllic beach resort town of Isla Margarita, northern Venezuela, a terrifying premonition took hold of him.

“We are not doing tests until further notice. The machine is not working and we don’t have any reagents,” the man in the white coat told him.

It was early June 2015. Venezuela was on the verge of a humanitarian crisis that was forcing people to queue for basic food and medical supplies. A couple of days before, Daniel had been diagnosed with HIV during a routine health check.

The tests being discussed were essential to establish the type of treatment he needed. But the main hospital in one of the richest states in Venezuela did not have the necessary supplies to carry them out.

Josefina Salomon. Credit: Amnistía Internacional

In much of the world, advances in treatment has meant HIV is now a chronic, manageable condition similar to diabetes, but in Venezuela it can now mean serious illness and risk of death.

Daniel’s premonition was brutally simple: no test. No treatment. No future.

The lack of everything

“Eventually doctors told me I was going to have to wait at least three months to have the tests done and start the treatment. I could not wait that long,” Daniel recalls.

In response to this crushing setback, he chose an option that most Venezuelans could not afford. He got hold of all the money he could, and went to a private health center.

But in Venezuela, where people can barely keep up with the ever-growing exchange rate and you need a couple of stacks of bills to buy a pizza, this was trickier than he thought.

Daniel needed one test every four months to ensure he was receiving the right treatment.

After the tests, his doctors prescribed an anti-retroviral – vital to keeping his immune system strong and preventing opportunistic illnesses from wreaking havoc on the body – and multivitamins to keep his immune system healthy. With a diagnosis and a prescription, Daniel went on a quest across the country.

He eventually got hold of 30 pills, enough to last a month, but finding over-the-counter multivitamins was nearly impossible.

By 2015, understocked pharmacies were used to seeing clients with prescriptions for one medicine and a long list of alternative medicines.

The crisis was exacerbated when, due to Venezuela’s growing debts since 2010, most international drug suppliers stopped selling to the country.

The government stopped publishing any kind of health statistics, including causes of death, at least three years ago. The number of deaths caused by the collapse of the country’s health system is therefore impossible to know, but experts fear the number might be in the thousands.

When it comes to HIV, the picture is even more dire.

Feliciano Reyna, founder of Acción Solidaria, a local organization responding to HIV & AIDS in the country, says the health system is in a critical state.

“We are going through a humanitarian crisis. In 2014, the government accepted medicines from the Panamerican Health Organization but they were not enough and there are no signs that there will be medicines available next year. We estimate that approximately 77,000 people will not have medicines after February. We have gone back decades,” he said from his office in Caracas.

Feliciano’s organization receives donations of medicines from private individuals which he gives to the hundreds of desperate people that knock on his door every day.

“The damage this situation causes is incalculable. The uncertainty, the anxiety. People might receive their medicines today but they do not know what they will do next month.”

Daniel’s hands. Credit: Sergio Ortiz/Amnistía Internacional

A life-changing letter

Life for Daniel became increasingly unbearable.

As months went by and prices for the tests he needed increased sharply, he began struggling to afford them. Working long hours at a studio in Isla Margarita, he didn’t have time to line up in seemingly endless queues in the few state-owned shops that sold food at “controlled prices”.

He grew more and more stressed and his health deteriorated. His weight dropped from 78kg to 64kg.

“Every time I went to have a test done, it would be 100 or 200% more expensive. I knew the time would come when I was not going to be able to pay the medical tests and consultations. That’s when I knew that the only option was to leave, at any cost,” he says.

When I meet Daniel in Mexico he is sitting behind a desk at his minimalist design studio in a small, bright house on the outskirts of Merida, southern Mexico. He shares the place with his partner, also from Venezuela.

Daniel is happy. He should be.

A few days earlier, he received a letter that would change his life.

It is a 21-page document from the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid COMAR for its Spanish acronym), and it demonstrates a new trend in how the Mexican government decides who it will accept as a refugee, and who it won’t.

The document details the current state of affairs in Venezuela and argues that the lack of essential, life-saving medicines are part of the “massive human rights violations” in the country which merits Mexico granting asylum in this case.

Daniel’s story is one of a very small handful. He is one of the first Venezuelans to be taken by Mexico as a refugee on the basis of not being able to find life-saving medical treatment in his homeland.

Mexico has, in recent years, turned away more asylum seekers than it allows in. Most arrive from Central America, fleeing horrendous rates of violent crime.

Traditionally, in order to be considered a refugee in Mexico, an individual has to show that his or her life would be in danger at home, due to war or generalized violence. Being ill would not help anyone qualify as a refugee.

Daniel’s lawyers used a piece of legislation little known outside of Latin America – the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees – to argue that the lack of medicines in Venezuela posed such a risk to his life that it qualified as a “grave human rights violation”.But Daniel’s lawyers used a piece of legislation little known outside of Latin America – the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees – to argue that the lack of medicines in Venezuela posed such a risk to his life that it qualified as a “grave human rights violation”.

Experts believe this technicality could open the door for thousands of Venezuelan refugees.

Carolina Carreño from Sin Fronteras, the organization that helped secure Daniel’s asylum, does not go overboard in her praise of the Mexican authorities.

“We celebrate that the government has taken this case, but they are just doing what the law says. There are still many challenges when it comes to the way refugees are treated in this country. There are problems when it comes to identifying the people who are in great need of international protection, and the help they need once they are taken as refugees.”

Mass exodus

Daniel’s desperation to leave the country is not unusual. The number of Venezuelans fleeing the country has rocketed in recent years.

As the “Venezuelan exodus” has grown, countries in the Americas have tried to rise to the challenge and developed strategies to deal with the new influx of refugees.

Colombia, for example, created a special stay permit for Venezuelans who entered the country legally before July 2017 and had a stamped passport. This measure is supposed to benefit 210,000 people, however has only benefited about 65.000 people.

Brazil created a two-year temporary residence permit on humanitarian grounds, giving thousands of people the right to work.

In February 2017, Peru created a temporary residence permit which benefited 11,000 people.

But Mexico’s decision to give refugee status to Daniel, based on a humanitarian cause, left even his lawyers surprised.

A long way from home

Yet the journey from Venezuela to Mexico was far from smooth.

When Daniel arrived in Cancun in March 2017, his dreams of safety were cut short when immigration authorities detained him at the airport and rejected his claim for asylum – despite the fact that he had a thick folder full of documents proving that he needed protection.

Daniel was put on a plane back to Maracaibo, Venezuela.

But he didn’t give up. He couldn’t afford to.

Daniel and his partner, who was already living in Mexico, consulted with lawyers from a Mexican organization helping refugees. They spent three months developing a water-tight case.

Meanwhile, the situation in Venezuela had deteriorated even further.

Daniel’s neighborhood had become increasingly dangerous, and he had to walk 16km to the travel agency to buy a plane ticket to Mexico as there was no other form of transport available, nor gas for the cars.

“I realized we were reaching rock bottom. I was wondering what I was going to do if I had to stay there, to get hold of my medicines. There were many shops that were not even open because they were scared of being robbed and because people had no way of getting there. It was a bit apocalyptic.”

Daniel knew this attempt at asylum would be his last. He was not going to be able to gather the money to travel again.

Arriving at Mexico City airport in May 2017, he handed over a letter requesting asylum. He was let in. The next day, he went to COMAR to make a formal request for asylum.

Following three months of relentless interviews, where he repeatedly had to recall his predicament in Venezuela, Daniel finally received the asylum letter he had so desperately fought for.

He is now where he wanted to be. With his partner, working in a studio in Merida, and with good chance of living healthily with HIV. He has a future, and he hopes others will not be denied theirs.

“I never thought I was going to need to apply for asylum in another country. But today, I feel very lucky. I just ask governments to help other people like me – we only need a chance.”

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/12/how-a-venezuelan-living-with-hiv-could-change-the-way-mexico-deals-with-refugees/feed/0“Banging on the Door” – Women Fight for a Voice and Space in Civil Societyhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2017/12/banging-door-women-fight-voice-space-civil-society/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=banging-door-women-fight-voice-space-civil-society
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/12/banging-door-women-fight-voice-space-civil-society/#respondSat, 09 Dec 2017 14:51:46 +0000Tharanga Yakupitiyagehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=153427The space for civil society organizations is shrinking around the world, with particular impacts on women activists and human rights defenders who face additional barriers due to their gender or sexual orientation. Civil society organizations (CSOs) and activists from around the world convened in Fiji over the last week to tackle some of the world’s […]

The space for civil society organizations is shrinking around the world, with particular impacts on women activists and human rights defenders who face additional barriers due to their gender or sexual orientation.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) and activists from around the world convened in Fiji over the last week to tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges.Two years before she was murdered, indigenous and environmental rights activist Berta Caceres said that it was her gender as much as her work that threatened her life.

Participants attended workshops and donned shirts saying “activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet” and “we will never give up on our beautiful planet.”

Among the challenges discussed is the rise in populism which has lead to restrictions in rights to expression and public assembly and thus actions taken by CSOs.

According to civil society alliance CIVICUS, only 2 of every 100 people live in a country with decent protections for civil society.

From Venezuela to Russia, state actors have put significant pressure on CSOs, preventing them from accessing foreign funding and registrations due to their role in defending human rights.

“When there is little or no support from government, the activist is in danger of discrimination and abuse by police and other authorities,” Pacific Women Advisory Board member Savina Nongebatu told IPS.

Human rights defenders (HRDs) have been increasingly subject to intimidation, harassment, and are at times killed for the work they do around the world.

Last year was the deadliest year ever recorded for HRDs with almost 300 killed across 25 countries, 49 percent of whom were defending land, indigenous, and environmental rights.

In addition to threats they face for their work, women human rights defenders (WHRDs) are frequently targeted because of their gender or sexual orientation, experiencing attacks that are traditionally perpetrated against women including rape, defamation campaigns, and acid attacks.

In August 2016, Turkish activist Hande Kader was brutally raped and murdered for her outspoken work in lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender (LBGT) rights.

Human rights later Bertha de Leon was subject to a sexualized smear campaign as photos circulated suggesting she had a sexual relationship with a judge who ruled favorably in a case in which she was involved in El Salvador.

Indian tribal rights activist Soni Sori who has been an outspoken critic of police violence towards her community was attacked with a chemical substance in February 2016.

Two years before she was murdered, indigenous and environmental rights activist Berta Caceres said that it was her gender as much as her work that threatened her life.

“We are women who are reclaiming our right to the sovereignty of our bodies and thoughts and political beliefs, to our cultural and spiritual rights—of course the aggression is much greater,” she said.

Analysts have found that the trend of closing civic space and restrictons to civil society often go hand in hand with the intensification of a fundamentalist discouse on national identity and traditional patricarchal values.

Such threats and actions work to silence WHRDs, limiting their resources and capacity to do work in already restricted civic spaces.

“When we have defenders with limited resources and capacity, the possibility of not being heard or consulted is high,” Nongebatu said.

“The ability to work and build partnerships rests squarely on the few women activists who may have learnt to work smarter from lessons learnt in their journey,” she added.

Such threats and restrictions do not stay isolated within borders, but are often brought over to international fora like the UN.

During International Civil Society Week (ICSW) in Fiji, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and former UN Development Programme Administrator Helen Clark noted UN’s continuous struggle to include civil society voices, reminding participants that the UN Charter begins with the words “We the peoples.”

“It doesn’t say we the countries or we the member states,” she said, adding that barriers to civil society participation often comes from member states.

“Not all member states like civil society very much…you just have to keep banging on the door and force it to respond,” Clark said.

LGBT rights have been particularly long contested at the UN. In 2016, Russia with the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) banned 11 LGBT organizations from attending a UN High-Level meeting on Ending AIDS.

And it was only recently that women were formally recognized for their role in climate action during the UN Climate Change Conference in Germany, kickstarting a process to integrate gender equality and human rights into climate action.

Nongebatu also told IPS of the “North and South divide” where larger civil society organizations take up more resources and space and urged for them to ensure that all women who work in human rights are consulted.

She also called on the UN to be inclusive of those in the Pacific Islands who often are unable to make the long journey to New York.

“Intersection of all issues is inevitable!…The work we do is never done! Don’t give up! We need to keep fighting!”

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific and small island states who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world met in Suva, Fiji from 4-8 December for International Civil Society Week.

It was, according to its organizers, designed to get the attention of delegates attending the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS). They wanted attendees to know they were putting themselves on the line to resist all attempts by permissive governments to indoctrinate their children in the immoral principles of “gender ideology.” They were, they insisted, defending their religious and freedom of speech rights.

Never mind that there is no “gender ideology,” much less governments that are forcing children to learn inappropriate material. This bus is just one of many recent direct-action attempts by right-wing organizations to pedal a falsehood that governments, aided by well-endowed liberal foundations, are out to get your children.

The bus provides the arresting visual, but it’s what takes place inside the conference center that should raise our hackles. The concern for the wellbeing of children is a cover; what these organizations want to do is disable efforts to advance protections and rights for girls, women and LGBTI people.

The movement, which defines itself as in opposition to “gender ideology,” is a response to progress made in the last decade advancing human rights for vulnerable populations.

Meanwhile, the decade has also seen an increase in the organizing power and political influence of conservative evangelical churches, especially in Central America, Mexico, and Brazil.

Latin America is the locus for much of the progress on LGBTI and abortion rights, both at the country and regional level. Same-sex marriages are legal in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay.

And significant advances have been made to increase access to legal abortion in Argentina, Chile, Mexico City, Colombia, Bolivia and Uruguay. At the regional level, the OAS has been a champion for LGBTI rights as early as 2008, when it adopted its first resolution condemning violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

By 2011, the OAS had created a dedicated LGBTI Unit at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The progress did not go unchallenged.

Opponents of sexual and reproductive rights and LGBTI rights in Latin America responded to victories directly, through both legislation and litigation. They also responded in more insidious ways.

Last year, in Brazil, ministries promoting equal rights for women and black communities were downgraded when they were folded into the Ministry of Justice, effectively neutralizing the ability of its leadership to negotiate or move forward any progressive policies.

The deliberate dismantling of government infrastructures that protect human rights is not endemic to Brazil. Indeed, it is a dedicated strategy of anti-rights organizations who are working to both coopt and fragment these spaces.

The OAS experienced this most fiercely at its 2013 General Assembly in Guatemala. For the first time this forum, which is historically a leader in advancing human rights, witnessed a coordinated movement forcefully agitating against reproductive and LGBTI rights.

Not coincidentally, it was also the year the OAS approved a convention against all forms of intolerance, racism and racial discrimination, which included protections for LGBTI people.

The following year, at the 2014 General Assembly in Paraguay, these same groups weren’t just oppositional to proposed human rights resolutions. They attempted to create new policies they claimed were rights-based, but were in fact camouflage to take away rights.

A proposed “family policy” included protection of life from conception, a well-used strategy to prevent access to abortion. Each subsequent assembly has been marked not just by the higher profile and activism of anti-rights groups, but also by a decrease in civility.

By the time of the 2016 General Assembly in the Dominican Republic, their ire was directed at transwomen. They felt sufficiently empowered to harass and intimidate transwomen who attended the Assembly as they entered women’s restrooms. Still, it’s clearly not sufficient to menace people inside the halls of diplomacy, but one must take the show on the road.

Cancun was not the first stop for the “Freedom Bus,” which had already made the rounds in Latin America, the United States, and Europe. The organized opposition to human rights plays out differently in each country context, but shared patterns of work are evident.

After identifying an opportunity to dismantle human rights mechanisms they see as favorable to women and LGBTI communities (women’s ministries, the OAS, etc.) they abandon facts and misrepresent the truth to advance an agenda that creates moral panic, and ultimately, that will motivate civil society and policy makers to support their regressive agenda.

These strong-arm tactics are shrinking the shared space for public discourse, and this is cause for alarm. They may have succeeded in raising their profile at the OAS, and enlisting conservative governments to support their agenda.

But they have not yet succeeded in shutting down the voices of progressives committed to human rights. The OAS continues to provide human rights activists and progressive governments the infrastructure to advance, and this must be preserved at all costs.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world are currently meeting in Suva, Fiji, through 8 December for International Civil Society Week.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/12/despite-progress-gay-abortion-rights-face-threats-latin-america/feed/0Global Interfaith LGBTIQ Leaders Convene at UN for Expert-level Dialoguehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2017/10/global-interfaith-lgbtiq-leaders-convene-un-expert-level-dialogue/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=global-interfaith-lgbtiq-leaders-convene-un-expert-level-dialogue
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/10/global-interfaith-lgbtiq-leaders-convene-un-expert-level-dialogue/#respondFri, 20 Oct 2017 21:43:14 +0000Patricia Ackermanhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=152638Rev. Patricia Ackerman is an Episcopal Priest in the Diocese of New York, and the New York UN Representative for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Rev. Patricia Ackerman is an Episcopal Priest in the Diocese of New York, and the New York UN Representative for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.

By Rev. Patricia AckermanNEW YORK, Oct 20 2017 (IPS)

On September 29, 2017, Yvette Abrahams, an indigenous religious leader from Cape Town, South Africa who served as the country’s Commissioner For Gender Equality for five years, gasped when she learned that South Africa had just voted in favor of United Nations Human Rights Council resolution condemning the death penalty for those found guilty of committing consensual same-sex sexual acts. She could not believe that the United States had not.

Rev. Patricia Ackerman

Just the month before, waves of concern arose in her as she read the text of the Nashville Statement, an anti-LGBTIQ document authored by the conservative Christian Right in the US, with the aim of equipping pastors with a consolidated justification for excluding LGBTIQ people in both spiritual and civic life.

Abrahams herself has lived through the effects of US based anti-LGBTIQ efforts that are are exported to Africa, leading to deaths, rapes, and beatings. Working against anti-LGBTIQ violence in South Africa and across the continent has been her life’s work, so Abrahams immediately noted that many of the Nashville Statement signers had also funded anti-gay legislation across Africa.

This is why she plans to travel to the UN Headquarters in New York on October 26th for the Ethics of Reciprocity dialogue, to begin a meaningful and healing conversation with her religious opponents.

Abrahams is joined by LGBTIQ faith leaders around the world – including supporters of the Nashville Statement – for the first expert-level international discussion by interfaith LGBTIQ religious leaders at the UN about how to work together to end abuses, violence, beatings, and murders of LGBTIQ people, often because of religiously sanctioned beliefs.

Yvette Abrahams knows that this dialogue can save lives. She was a key player during End Hate Campaign in the South African West Cape, working to highlight hate violence against LBGTIQ people.

“As late as 2008 there were no monitoring mechanisms or reporting systems for such crimes, and political leaders did not even recognize this as a problem”. She recalls a conversation she had with a Ugandan activist:

“We realized we were both dealing with criminalization, and then police abuse, which made reporting almost impossible. In Uganda, the arrests of LBT/Kuchu people weren’t always recorded because the police were using sexuality to extort money instead of pressing charges – making it difficult to track police abuse.

She explained to me how if you’re arrested in Uganda, the police lock you up and intimidate you, and because they steal your money, they won’t report the arrest. This violence has been made invisible.

Abrahams is joined by an LGBTIQ Baptist minister from Uganda named Brian Byamukama, a Baptist minister from Uganda, who has seen first-hand how the efforts of the Christian Right at the UN have rippled out to his community. In Uganda, same-sex acts are punishable by death.

Abrahams and Byamukama recount the story of a Ugandan lesbian woman who was raped: “So many people – church people and members of my own family – told me that this was God’s way of punishing me for being a lesbian. Because I was unwilling to ‘change’, they said, God was using this method to teach me a very hard lesson…I was hurt in two ways; firstly I was dealing with the pain and humiliation of the rape, and secondly I suffered because of my people’s judgement.”

Both leaders say that rape as an ‘instrument of God’ is common in South Africa and Uganda. A number of conservative, moderate, and progressive religious organizations such as C-Fam, The Salvation Army, The Lutheran Church, numerous Catholic religious orders in consultation with the UN including Sisters of Mercy, Franciscans, Augustinians, and Big Ocean Women, many other are attending.

Noticeably absent from the consultation will be the Office of the Holy See at the UN, the Vatican. Father Roger Landry, Attaché, has stated he “doubts they will attend.” About their participation in the UN event, Byamukama said: “This is where we stand together or fall apart. We cannot afford to waste energy fighting each other. The UN is the closest thing we have to a world government. It is where conversations about love and justice should happen on a planetary scale.”

Religious leaders participating at the Ethics of Reciprocity dialogue hail from Uganda, Malawi, Tajikistan, Hong Kong, Australia, Samoa, South Africa, Ghana, and Brazil. This is the first time LGBTIQ faith leaders will be formally addressing communities at the UN, where international leaders will hear these stories from Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Indigenous, and Buddhist faith traditions.

There was also the US’s recent affirmative vote in the UN resolution on a ban on the death penalty for homosexuality as a renewed call for religious leaders to commit to end to criminalization and violence of LGBTIQ people. “The death penalty for consensual same-sex acts currently exists in 13 countries, but the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is clear that all of us are born free and equal. It’s time for faith leaders to come together where we agree, which is to treat others the way we would like to be treated – free from violence. The golden rule of do unto others is something we can all agree on.”

On September 18 and 19, US President Donald Trump addressed world leaders at the opening of the 72nd Session of the General Assembly in New York.

Jessica Stern

Time and time again, President Trump has threatened to curtail the United States’ obligations to the international human rights system and to the United Nations itself. In his remarks, the word he said most often – “sovereignty” – underscored that his political agenda promotes political isolationism and undermines the global cooperation that protects vulnerable people from natural disasters, corrupt governments, and civil war.

As an organization that serves as a watchdog on the UN, we know that sovereignty is a term loaded with negative meaning. Sovereignty is often an excuse for States to ignore their obligation to protect the human rights of individuals, especially those that are most marginalized and vulnerable.

Reform in President Trump’s words is code for stripping the human rights system of much-needed resources. We believe the only reform that is truly needed puts LGBTIQ people and all vulnerable groups at the center of UN governance, human rights, and programs. The reform and resources we need would elevate the rights of the world’s most marginalized, open space for meaningful civil society participation, and invest in climate justice.

OutRight addressed the kinds of reform that would advance human rights and strengthen the UN today.

Reallocation of resources

The world’s most vulnerable and marginalized people shoulder the burden of poverty and discrimination, yet the UN currently fails to adequately address the needs of these populations. For example, UN Women, the lead agency addressing gender-based violence and gender justice, has one of the smallest budgets of all UN agencies. The UNDP proposed LGBTI Inclusion Index would aggregate global data about LGBTI people aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, but it remains woefully underfunded.

Increased investment in UN programs that work with marginalized and vulnerable populations is essential if the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women, girls and LGBTI people are to be protected. Adequate funding is required to protect and promote the human rights of all women and girls, people of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics, indigenous, migrant, rural, and elderly people, as well as people with disabilities, and people living with HIV/AIDS.

Access for civil society

Civil society access across the UN system is shrinking. In the last year alone, arbitrary and onerous restrictions on human rights defenders and organizations trying to utilize the UN have increased exponentially. Under these circumstances, civil society is unable to raise vital issues and act as a watchdog on States and UN officials, and the result is that transparency and accountability have been undermined. The very voices and people the United National claims to protect and serve are increasingly excluded from participating.

The reform needed would enable civil society to participate meaningfully in decision-making and for human rights defenders working at the international level to be protected from reprisals.

Greater investment in human rights and climate justice

Investment in security alone is not sufficient to protect human lives. Peace and security are achieved through the protection and promotion of human rights and climate justice. Every day, people’s fundamental rights are egregiously and persistently violated in ways that shock the conscience. Often the only recourse and access to justice for individuals’ whose rights are being undermined and disregarded at the country level are international rights structures. Global migration and food scarcity will only be exacerbated if the world does not put issues of climate change front and center in policymaking.

We call on UN Member States to increase commitment to the Office of Human Rights, the Human Rights Council, treaty bodies and special mechanisms. We call on Member States to fully ratify the Paris Agreement, uphold the “Call to Action” of the Oceans Conference, and support the Kyoto Protocols.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/09/president-trump-un-reaction/feed/0For India’s Urban Marginalized, Reproductive Healthcare Still a Distant Dreamhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2017/07/indias-urban-marginalized-reproductive-healthcare-still-distant-dream/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=indias-urban-marginalized-reproductive-healthcare-still-distant-dream
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/07/indias-urban-marginalized-reproductive-healthcare-still-distant-dream/#commentsTue, 11 Jul 2017 12:21:01 +0000Stella Paulhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=151240In a semi-lit room of a southern Chennai neighborhood, a group of women sit in a circle around a table surrounded by large cardboard boxes of “Nirodh” – India’s most popular condom. Clad in colorful saris, wearing toe rings and red dots on their foreheads, they look like ordinary housewives. Slowly, one of the women […]

Sex workers in India’s Chennai city demonstrate their skills in slipping condoms on a phallus. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella PaulCHENNAI/LONDON, Jul 11 2017 (IPS)

In a semi-lit room of a southern Chennai neighborhood, a group of women sit in a circle around a table surrounded by large cardboard boxes of “Nirodh” – India’s most popular condom.

Clad in colorful saris, wearing toe rings and red dots on their foreheads, they look like ordinary housewives. Slowly, one of the women opens a box, takes out a handful of condoms and a wooden phallus. Sound of laughter fills the air as each woman takes her trurn to slip a condom over the phallus. It’s a rare, happy hour for these women who live a hard life as sex workers – a fact they carefully guard from their families.“In our community, over 90 percent of people survive by begging. How can they ever afford any of these treatments?" --Axom, a 26-year-old transsexual man

Baby, who only goes by the first name, is in her forties and the most experienced of all when it comes to demostrating condom skills. A peer educator, Baby has been teaching fellow sex workers all over the city of Chennai how to practice safe sex and protect themselves from both HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

Thanks to constant training and a generation of awareness, condoms are now part and parcel of almost all of the city’s 6,300 sex workers’ lives, she says. But their sexual health and protection from diseases still completely depend on their clients’ willingness to use a condom.

“We try our best to help the client understand that it is very important to wear a condom because that will keep us both safe from HIV and other infections like gonorrhea. But it needs some convincing. Most of them wear it only grudgingly,“ says Baby.

Female condoms – a mirage

India is one of the largest manufacturers and exporters of condoms in the world. The government-owned Hindustan Latest Limited (HLL) produces over a billion condoms annually, including Nirodh. Of these, 650 million Nirodh condoms are given away annually free of cost for the safe sex campaign. But when it comes to female condoms, there is no free lunch and one must buy the condoms from a store.

AJ Hariharan is the founder and CEO of the Chennai-based Indian Community Welfare Organization (ICWO), one of the largest NGOs in the country working for the welfare of sex workers. Hariharan says that female condoms could be of immense help for the sex workers, but are extremely hard to access because of steep pricing.

A pack of male condom costs around 25 rupees, while a female condom is priced at 59 and above. This is far beyond the reach of most sex workers whose daily earnings are 200-500 rupees, which goes to support their families.

“At the current price, a female condom is an out of reach luxury for poor women. They will never be able to able to use this which is a shame because the average sex workers really need female condoms,” Hariharan adds..

The reason behind the “great need” is both self-empowerment and money, he explains: it takes some time to explain to a client why he must wear a condom and then help him put it on. But this requires time and often, the couple may have to wait before the man has an erection again. With a female condom, business can be done faster as she can save both her time and energy and serve him quick. For those women who rent a place for work, this can be very helpful as she can be with multiple clients in few hours and spend less on rent.

Organizations like ICWO have asked the government for a free supply of female condoms, says Hariharan, but have not received any so far. “This is one of the biggest unmet needs and it must be looked seriously into,” he says.

Despite their inability to afford female condoms, the sex worker community is luckier than other marginalized people of the city as they regularly access sexual and reproductive health services.

“There are eight hospitals in the city where we can go for a regular health check-up that includes having an HIV and STI test and take condoms,” says Vasanthi, a sex worker.

Healthcare for the Transgender

But for another sexual minority – the 450,000 strong transgender community – even a regular health check-up remains a struggle.

“One of the biggest challenges is finding a doctor who can and is willing to understand our problems,” reveals Axom, a 26-year-old transsexual man.

“The moment you walk into a hospital or a private clinic, the doctor will start judging your character and rebuke you for your sexual choice, instead of advising you what to do. It always starts with ‘why do you choose to be this way?’ After this, obviously you will never feel like opening up about your health issues,” Axom says.

Besides the moral policing, transgender community members also face uphill battles to afford healthcare including feminizing and masculinizing hormonal treatment.

Axom has been undergoing hormonal treatment. He hopes to have sex reassignment surgery – a multilayered medical treatment that will give him a prosthetic penis – and is spending over 10,000 dollars on the treatment. Thanks to his job in one of the world‘s biggest e-commerce firms, he can afford it, but for most others, such procedures remain a distant dream.

“In our community, over 90 percent of people survive by begging,” Axom says. “How can they ever afford any of these treatments?“

FP2020, Commitments and Gaps

In 2012, India became a part of the FP2020 – a global partnership to achieve Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 5 and ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and rights by 2030. India had committed among other things to invest two billion dollars over eight years to reduce the unmet need and address “equity so that the poorest and most vulnerable population have more access to quality services and supplies.“

On July 11, representatives from the FP2020 partner countries are participating in a summit in London again to inform and analyse the current status of delivering those commitments made four years ago.

For India, this is a good chance to tell the world what it has really done and recommit to achieve the goals that it had set, says Lester Coutinho, Deputy Director of Family Planning at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Governments, including India, are now responding to the gaps in the commitments that they made. Adolescents and youths are one area, supply chain is another, money for purchasing commodities is the third. Giving counseling and information to women and young people is another. There are tangible solutions in these areas that the government can adopt,” says Coutinho.

Meanwhile, in Chennai, transsexual men and woman like Axom hope that one day the government will subsidize the SRS and hormonal treatment for transgenders.

“The Supreme Court of India recognized the transpeople as a third gender in 2014, so we are now entitled to equal rights and facilities as other citizens do. If the government can offer free surgeries for life-threatening diseases, why can’t we expect it to offer us subsidies on treatments that can remove threats to our identities and the restoration of a normality in our life?” asks Axom.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/07/indias-urban-marginalized-reproductive-healthcare-still-distant-dream/feed/1Will the UN “Leave No One Behind” and Improve LGBTI Health and Well-Being?http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/07/will-the-un-leave-no-one-behind-and-improve-lgbti-health-and-well-being/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=will-the-un-leave-no-one-behind-and-improve-lgbti-health-and-well-being
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/07/will-the-un-leave-no-one-behind-and-improve-lgbti-health-and-well-being/#respondMon, 10 Jul 2017 13:18:10 +0000FelicityDalyhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=151227Dr Felicity Daly is the Global Research Coordinator for OutRight Action International

While there has been progress in researching the health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people and responding to certain emerging health threats in high-income countries – elsewhere in the world such research is inadequate and incomplete.

Agenda 2030 for LGBTI Health and Well-Being, has been written in advance of the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development which convenes from 10-19 July 2017 at the United Nations in New York. At this meeting UN Member States will review progress on implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals – a plan of action for “people, planet and prosperity”.

The aspiration of the SDGs to “leave no one behind” can be utilized to improve the health and well-being of LGBTI. UN officials, former Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity Prof. Vitit Muntarbhorn, have made it clear that the SDGs are inclusive of all people regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics.

A new report published by OutRight Action International, the Global Forum on MSM and HIV highlights that wherever research has been conducted, LGBTI people’s health is shown to be consistently poorer than the general population.

LGBTI people have the right to health – the same as all other people, and thus LGBTI health concerns should be included in the implementation of the health goal – SDG 3.

Agenda 2030 for LGBTI Health and Well-Being reviews data from low- and middle-income countries, which shows that compared with the general population gay, bisexual men and other men who have sex with men are 19 times more likely to be living with HIV and transgender women are 49 times more likely to be living with HIV.

The report notes that the health concerns of lesbian and bisexual women, trans and intersex people have all too often been overlooked and presents data which demonstrates that LGBTI people also experience: poor mental health, higher prevalence of alcohol and substance abuse, lack of access to sexual and reproductive health services, and inadequate funding for inclusive and effective health interventions.

The common drivers behind these health disparities are violence, criminalization, social exclusion and discrimination, including widespread discrimination LGBTI people experience in health care settings.

Ironically, this means that very often LGBTI people are rendered invisible in efforts to collect health data, which do not include questions about sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics.

The lack of data poses problems in effectively targeting health services to help those in most need. While some high-income countries have effectively used research to inform HIV prevention and care for gay and bisexual men, and other affected populations this has not been the case in most countries.

Missing health data makes it harder for LGBTI people to advocate for resources they need and becomes an excuse for governments hostile to LGBTI populations to ignore the health needs of LGBTI people.

A systematic review of general population studies conducted in Australia, Europe, and North America found that compared with heterosexual people, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are at higher risk for mental disorders, including depression and anxiety, suicidal ideation and deliberate self-harmMoreover, data about LGBTI health overwhelmingly represents research conducted in high income countries where there has been social and legal progress for some sexual and gender minorities.

For example, a systematic review of general population studies conducted in Australia, Europe, and North America found that compared with heterosexual people, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are at higher risk for mental disorders, including depression and anxiety, suicidal ideation and deliberate self-harm.

Data gaps are starkest in countries where discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression and sex characteristics is entrenched in law.

There are no specific indicators in the SDG framework that measure the health specifically for LGBTI people. Nevertheless, states can voluntarily report on progress and we urge them to do so in order to live up to the commitment to “leave no one behind.”

Agenda 2030 for LGBTI Health and Well-Being details the type of data UN Member States should collect to effectively monitor implementation of the targets of SDG 3 in a way that improves the health and well-being of LGBTI people.

We want to ensure Member States ask the right questions in order to understand and monitor health and well-being among LGBTI people. We urge that they also focus on ending stigma and discrimination, which has a major detrimental impact on health and well-being, and also poses barriers to accessing health care services that LGBTI people need.

We stress that all Member States must repeal the laws, policies, and practices that criminalise same sex behaviour and limit the ability of people to express, and have legally recognised, their gender identity.

States must also prohibit non-consensual medical procedures, including intersex genital mutilation, forced sterilizations as requirements for gender recognition, and forced anal examinations.

LGBTI people are well aware of the health disparities taking hold and stealing lives in their communities, but insufficient evidence makes it harder to make a convincing case for health services to respond to these needs.

We hope more countries will accelerate a research revolution for LGBTI inclusion, which improves the health and well-being of these communities.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/07/will-the-un-leave-no-one-behind-and-improve-lgbti-health-and-well-being/feed/0“Hate Group” Inclusion Shows UN Members Still Divided on LGBT Rightshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2017/03/hate-group-inclusion-shows-un-members-still-divided-on-lgbt-rights/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hate-group-inclusion-shows-un-members-still-divided-on-lgbt-rights
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/03/hate-group-inclusion-shows-un-members-still-divided-on-lgbt-rights/#respondMon, 20 Mar 2017 17:14:36 +0000Lyndal Rowlandshttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=149488A group designated as a hate group for its “often violent rhetoric” against LGBTI rights was an invited member of the United States Official Delegation to the annual women’s meeting say rights groups. C-FAM – one of the invited members of the United States official delegation to the meeting – has been designated as an Anti-LGBT hate group by […]

A group designated as a hate group for its “often violent rhetoric” against LGBTI rights was an invited member of the United States Official Delegation to the annual women’s meeting say rights groups.

C-FAM – one of the invited members of the United States official delegation to the meeting – has been designated as an Anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center “for its oftenviolentrhetoric on LGBTQI rights” according to the International Women’s Health Coalition, who opposed the appointment.

Including C-Fam on the US delegation reflects ongoing disagreement between UN member states – and even within UN member states domestically – about the importance of including LGBTI rights within the UN’s work.

For the Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) community, there were many reasons to come to this year’s annual women’s meeting with “battle scars,” and “eyes open” says Jessica Stern, Executive Director of OutRight Action International.

In a statement issued in response to C-Fam’s appointment to the US delegation, Stern said described C-Fam as an organisation with a “violent mentality” and said that “it is essential that the US uphold American values and prevent all forms of discrimination at the CSW” and that “the US government must ensure protection for the world’s most vulnerable people.”

Globally LGBTI people are among those most vulnerable to discrimination, violence and poverty. Yet explicit references to LGBTI rights continue to be left out of major UN documents, including the annual outcome document of the CSW, Stern told IPS.

“I see that the international (feminist) spaces are beginning to be receptive of trans people," -- Pepe Julien Onzema

“The agreed conclusions of the CSW have never in all of its history ever made explicit reference to sexual orientation, gender identy or intersex status so that’s decades of systematic exclusion,” she told IPS.

“What we’re asking is that our allies in government and our allies in different civil society movements understand that we need them to stand up for and with us in demanding inclusive references to our needs.”

However Stern said that she was also “very happy to say” that there is ”extraordinarily strong representation of LBTI rights” in side events at the year’s meeting, which each year brings thousands of government and non-government representatives to New York.

LBTI representatives at this year’s meeting included Pepe Julien Onzema, a trans male Ugandan activist who was a presenter at a non-government side event on Wednesday.

Onzema told IPS that although he has seen some open-mindedness in including trans people in the feminist movement internationally that there are still some challenges.

“I see that the international (feminist) spaces are beginning to be receptive of trans people,” but Onzema added that thinks that there is still “a lot of work to do.”

“Even we as activists we are still looking at each others’ anatomy to qualify people for these spaces.”

However Onzema who was attending the CSW for the first time said that he had felt welcomed at the meeting:

“I’m receiving warmth from people who know I am trans, who know I am from Uganda,” he said.

The Ugandan government’s persecution of the Ugandan LGBTI community has received worldwide attention in recent years. International organisations both for and against LGBTI rights have also actively tried to influence the domestic situation in the East African nation.

The US Mission to the United Nations could not immediately be reached for comment on the inclusion of C-Fam in the US delegation.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/03/hate-group-inclusion-shows-un-members-still-divided-on-lgbt-rights/feed/0“The Struggle Continues” for Human Right to Peace and Inclusion of Womenhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2017/03/the-struggle-continues-for-human-right-to-peace-and-inclusion-of-women/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-struggle-continues-for-human-right-to-peace-and-inclusion-of-women
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/03/the-struggle-continues-for-human-right-to-peace-and-inclusion-of-women/#respondThu, 16 Mar 2017 20:07:50 +0000Tharanga Yakupitiyagehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=149456UN officials and activists gathered to discuss the essential relationships between sustainable peace and gender equality during a two week-long UN meeting, begining March 13. At a side event of the 61st session of the Commission of the Status of Women (CSW), panelists shed light on the important role that women play in peace and […]

UN officials and activists gathered to discuss the essential relationships between sustainable peace and gender equality during a two week-long UN meeting, begining March 13.

At a side event of the 61st session of the Commission of the Status of Women (CSW), panelists shed light on the important role that women play in peace and development.

“Without peace, no development is possible. And without development, no peace is achievable. But without women, neither peace nor development is possible,” said Former Under-Secretary General and High Representative of the UN Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury.

According to an Oxfam report, women carry out up to 10 times more unpaid care work than men. This work is worth approximately $10 trillion per year, which is more than the gross domestic products (GDPs) of India, Japan and Brazil combined.

Research has also shown that almost 60 million unpaid workers are filling in the gaps caused by inadequate health services, majority of whom are women who have had to give up employment or education to carry out this role.

Chowdhury added that there would be 150 million fewer hungry people in the world if women had the same access to resources as men.

Panelists were particularly concerned with the lack of formal recognition of the human right to peace and the inclusion of women in this goal.

Canadian activist Douglas Roche explained the ‘human right to peace’ arose to address new “interconnected” challenges that the current human rights framework, which is based on a relationship between the State and the individual, is unable to do, including increased militarism by both State and non-State entities.

During the panel discussion, UN Independent Expert in the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order Alfred-Maurice de Zayas stated that the human right to peace also allows for the realization of the right to self-determination which is a “crucial conflict prevention strategy.”

After decades of struggling to gain consensus, the General Assembly adopted a Declaration on the Right to Peace in December. Though it was a significant accomplishment achieved largely due to a civil society initiative, many have expressed their disappointment in the document.

“The new declaration is falling far short of the expectation of civil society, many governments,” Chowdhury told IPS.

Among concerns about the declaration is its lack of reference to women which is only mentioned once in the 6 page document.

President of Hague Appeal for Peace and long time peace activist Cora Weiss criicised the document’s language, which calls for women’s “maximum participation.”

“It’s a slippery word,” she told participants, stressing the importance of “equal” inclusion of women to achieve peace.

Weiss was a national leader of the Women Strike for Peace, which organised the largest national women’s protest of the 20th century and contributed to the end of nuclear testing in the 1960s. She was also helped lead the anti-Vietnam war movement, including organising one of the largest anti-war demonstrations in 1969.

“There is no limit to the relationship between women and peace,” Weiss said.

Chowdhury, who led the initiative on Resolution 1325 calling for the increase in women’s representation in conflict management and resolution, echoed similar sentiments to IPS, stating: “Women at the peace table is a very important element at the UN and at the Security Council to take into account. Unless they value the 50 percent of humanity positively contributing to securing peace and security, it will move nowhere.”

Despite the unanimous UN adoption of Resolution 1325, little has been done to enforce and implement it. No woman has ever been the chief or lead mediator in an UN-led peace negotiation.

Panelists also criticised the absence of language around disarmament in the Declaration.

“How are you going to make peace in a world that is awash with weapons?” Weiss asked.

According the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), approximately 15,000 nuclear weapons still exist and are owned by just nine countries. The Arms Control Association (ACA) estimates a higher inventory of 15,500, 90 percent of which belong to Russia and the United States. Almost 2000 of these warheads are on high alert and are ready to launch within minutes, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found.

More general military spending also continues to dwarf resources provided to development activities including education.

In 2014, global military spending was approximately 1.8 trillion dollars while 26 billion dollars was provided to achieve education for all by the end of 2015.

Zayas highlighted the need to redirect resources used for war to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and address other pressing socioeconomic and environmental challenges.

Chowdhury also told participants that a resolution on peace cannot and should not be adopted by vote.

“Peace is the ultimate goal of the UN,” he said.

The Declaration was approved with 131 vote for, 34 against, and with 19 abstentions, reflecting a lack of consensus on the subject.

Though he expressed fear that progress towards gender equality may be rolled back due to a reversal in trends, Chowdhury said the struggle will continue until the human right to peace is recognized and implemented.

CSW is the largest inter-governmental forum on women’s rights, bringing together civil society, academia, and governments. This year’s theme is women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/03/the-struggle-continues-for-human-right-to-peace-and-inclusion-of-women/feed/0Travel Restrictions Cast Shadow on UN Women’s Meeting: Rights Groupshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2017/03/travel-restrictions-cast-shadow-on-un-womens-meeting-rights-groups/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=travel-restrictions-cast-shadow-on-un-womens-meeting-rights-groups
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/03/travel-restrictions-cast-shadow-on-un-womens-meeting-rights-groups/#commentsThu, 16 Mar 2017 04:27:56 +0000Lyndal Rowlandshttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=149442Increasing travel restrictions have prevented delegates from attending this year’s UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), according to several women’s rights groups. The travel constraints go beyond U.S. President Donald Trump’s embattled travel ban on refugees and Muslim-majority countries, which was again blocked by a Federal Judge on Wednesday. Although the Executive Order […]

A view of the General Assembly Hall during the opening meeting of the sixty-first session of the Commission on Stats of Women (CSW). Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Lyndal RowlandsUNITED NATIONS, Mar 16 2017 (IPS)

Increasing travel restrictions have prevented delegates from attending this year’s UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), according to several women’s rights groups.

The travel constraints go beyond U.S. President Donald Trump’s embattled travel ban on refugees and Muslim-majority countries, which was again blocked by a Federal Judge on Wednesday.

Although the Executive Order has not been re-enacted, women’s rights groups perceive that organising internationally is becoming more difficult. They report that some potential delegates were surprised that they were unable to obtain U.S. visas for the UN meeting; others were worried about increasingly strict treatment at U.S. airports; while others were prevented from travelling by their home countries.

The annual Commission on the Status of Women is usually one of the most vibrant and diverse meetings at UN headquarters in New York with hundreds of government ministers and thousands of delegates attending from around the world.

“Multiple civil society organisations representatives from other countries are facing refusals and this is new to us, as we have never faced visa refusals after presenting UN credentials,” said Amin.

Amin also said that she had “been in contact with UN Women in Bangladesh, in Bangkok (ESCAP) and in New York over the visa refusal issue,” for weeks before the meeting, trying to find a solution.

“Those who were refused were expected by us to speak or participate in our side events and meetings with partner organisations and official delegations.” The APWLD, is an NGO which has accreditation with the UN Economic and Social Chamber.

Others unable to attend the event include a youth activist from El Salvador who on Wednesday participated in a side-event she had been meant to speak at, via video. Meanwhile women’s rights activists Mozn Hassan and Azza Soliman from Egypt were unable to attend because the Egyptian government has prevented them from leaving the country

"Multiple civil society organisations representatives from other countries are facing refusals and this is new to us, as we have never faced visa refusals after presenting UN credentials," -- Sanam Amin.

Representatives from civil society having difficulties obtaining visas to travel to attend UN meetings in the United States pre-dates the current Trump-Republican Administration. The U.S. Department of State advised IPS that it could not comment on individual visa cases. However while there are many potential reasons why visas may be refused, several groups perceive travel becoming more difficult in 2017.

“It’s incredibly ominous to have women’s rights activists feel like the revised executive order and overall hate rhetoric from the Trump administration makes them feel unsafe coming to this CSW and that is what we have heard,” Jessica Stern, Executive Director of OutRight Action International told IPS.

“We’ve heard women’s rights activists say that they worried about how they would be treated at U.S. borders and airports. We heard LGBTI activists who were coming to this meeting also worry about their own safety.”

Both Stern and Amin expressed concern about the implications and meanings of the travel ban, even though the courts have continued to keep it on hold, because even the revised ban, specifically restricts travel for nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

“The ban text even cites violence against women – in section one – in the six countries as reason to ‘not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred’,” said Amin.

“In fact, it (would restrict) civil society from those very countries from participating in events such as CSW. Instead, their governments are emboldened to take more regressive positions on women’s human rights, and the U.S., with its Global Gag Rule among other anti-women policies, is taking its place side-by-side with the very countries it has targeted with the ban,” she said.

Stern added that the theme of this year’s CSW – the economic empowerment of women – should not be a politicised issue.

“(It) should be a non-partisan issue that every government in the world can get behind because every government has a vested interest in the eradication of poverty and national economic development and we know that women are the majority of the world’s poor and so if you empower women economically than you empower families communities and nations,” said Stern.

She emphasised the importance of the meeting as a global forum for people who are actively working for gender justice around the world to speak with governments.

At the CSW “thousands of activists for women’s rights and gender justice (speak) with every government of the world to say what struggles they have from their own governments and the kind of accountability that they expect from the international system,” says Stern.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/03/travel-restrictions-cast-shadow-on-un-womens-meeting-rights-groups/feed/1The United Nations and the Religious Right​http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/02/the-united-nations-and-the-religious-right%e2%80%8b/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-united-nations-and-the-religious-right%25e2%2580%258b
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/02/the-united-nations-and-the-religious-right%e2%80%8b/#commentsTue, 28 Feb 2017 04:30:46 +0000Andy Hazelhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=149156Religious advocacy groups have a long history of working with the United Nations, pushing back against progressive interpretations of the terms ‘family’ and ‘marriage’ as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That effort was seemingly rewarded in 2016 as more people voted across the globe for political parties promising conservative interpretations of both, […]

Religious advocacy groups have a long history of working with the United Nations, pushing back against progressive interpretations of the terms ‘family’ and ‘marriage’ as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

That effort was seemingly rewarded in 2016 as more people voted across the globe for political parties promising conservative interpretations of both, in stark contrast to moves by some countries in recent years to legalise same sex marriage and enhance protections for LGBTQI [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or intersex] people.

In 2017, the battle to define these terms both as they appear in the declaration and in law is growing increasingly fierce.

Like most advocacy directed at UN or Washington policy makers, lobbying by religious groups typically takes place behind the scenes, with success often measured in terms of whether or not progressive social policies get adopted.

Two of the most active and successful players are the World Congress of Families (WCF) – with its longstanding ties to African, Russian and Eastern European governments, as well as conservative US politicians – and the legal advocacy group the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which has had many successes in international courts defending Judeo-Christian rights. Both organisations cite their consultative status at the UN as a key to their reputations.

WCF Managing Director Larry Jacobs says that, given the current political climate, WCF and its supporters have cause for optimism.

“There’s been a fundamental denial over the last 50 years that the family is needed,” he told IPS, referring to the diversification of family structure away from the ‘traditional’ or nuclear model favoured by conservatives towards a more open interpretation. “Much of it is a result of the agenda of sexual revolution lobbyists,” he added, a view also shared by many involved in religious social policy.

“I think one of our greatest successes is protecting Article 16.3 [The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State]. Other groups are trying to redefine existing mandates in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the idea that family is ‘natural’ is one of our biggest successes.”

Pope Francis echoed these sentiments during his address to the United Nations, describing the family as “the primary cell of any social development”. While Pope Francis has preached acceptance and tolerance of homosexuality, he has never shown support for the non-nuclear family or gender fluidity.

The WCF coordinates conservative groups and has been linked to major international policy shifts, such as Russia’s law prohibiting the promotion of ‘non-traditional sexual relationships’, and Hungary’s ‘family-friendly’ policies. These moves have been linked to a rise in persecution of and violence against LGBTQI citizens. Members and associates of the group have been linked to the passage of laws outlawing homosexuality throughout Africa, and the failure of the Estrela Resolution to pass the European Parliament, a proposal to treat abortion as a human right and standardise sexual health education.

“We need to ensure that cultural reasons or ‘traditional’ values aren’t used to undermine the universality of human rights principles, or equal application of existing law in regards to everyone,” -- Outright’s UN program coordinator Siri May.

In the opposite corner to these groups, but likewise drawing on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the foundation for its work, is LGBTQI advocacy group Outright Action International. Outright argues that denying the expansion of ‘family’ beyond a nuclear structure and ‘marriage’ beyond a heterosexual union violates human rights.

“We need to ensure that cultural reasons or ‘traditional’ values aren’t used to undermine the universality of human rights principles, or equal application of existing law in regards to everyone,” says Outright’s UN program coordinator Siri May. “We felt very grateful for the support of [ex- UN Secretary General] Ban Ki Moon. He became a strong advocate for universality.”

The Alliance Defending Freedom joined the World Congress of Families in UN consultative status in 2014, with its declared aims to “help craft language that affirms religious freedom, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family. Chief counsel Benjamin Bull wrote: “ADF can now have a say when UN treaties and conventions are drafted that directly impact religious liberty and important matters related to the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.”

“No person – anywhere – should be punished simply for holding to Christian beliefs,” says Bull. Bull opposed Former UN Secretary-General Ban’s support for Ban’s LGBTQI rights arguing that it privileged “the demands of sexually confused individuals over the rights of other individuals.”

Cases for which ADF have advocated in the United States, Europe and in the Global South, most notably in Central and South America, have drawn accusations of human rights violations.

One key act during Ban’s tenure was the creation of a Special Rapporteur for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Inaugural appointee Vitit Muntarbhorn has been charged with identifying instances where human rights are violated based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Muntarbhorn only narrowly kept his role after the legitimacy of the office was challenged twice by the United Nations General Assembly, reflecting deep divisions within the UN’s membership on this issue.

“Vitit has a very focused brief so we’re excited to be working with him and other mandate holders,” says Outright’s May. “We’ll be looking to provide him and other experts with the best information available.”

WCF’s Larry Jacobs is keen to point out that, despite being designated a ‘hate group’ and ‘virulently anti-gay’ by both mainstream news media and human rights advocacy groups, he does not condone violence.

“We are not anti-gay. Homosexuals are the people that need a natural family the most. We are the ones that want to help the victims of the sexual revolution, the victims of divorce, the victims of people who have lived a promiscuous lifestyle. I think the question about homosexuality is ‘how do we deal with brokenness?’ ”

But May contests this. “We know throughout history that family units are not about one man, one women and two children. That’s quite a western construct. There are many examples of same-sex couple families with children that provide love. Human rights are applicable to the individual, and family units are very important, but they should never trump the right of the individual.”

“What we know about gender-based violence and LGBTQI rights are that they’re needed to protect an individual that might be at risk from their family. They have rights and obligations within human rights law and those rights should never be used to privilege heterosexuality.”

Despite their marked differences, both Jacobs and May are cautiously optimistic about the UN’s approach under new Secretary-General António Guterres, a man who forged his political and diplomatic career balancing socialist beliefs with his Catholic faith.

“We’d expect the incoming Secretary General would have the same interpretation of human rights law and traditional cultural values as Ban Ki Moon,” says May. “We feel very encouraged about his statements.”

“It’s a very exciting time,” concurs Jacobs. “Even when his party went against him on abortion, Guterres stayed true to his faith and his values. He wasn’t afraid to talk about the sanctity of human life from conception to death, so this is an exciting time.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelt Vitit Muntarbhorn’s name.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/02/the-united-nations-and-the-religious-right%e2%80%8b/feed/2New Mandate for LGBTI Rights at the UNhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2017/02/new-mandate-for-lgbti-rights-at-the-un/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-mandate-for-lgbti-rights-at-the-un
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/02/new-mandate-for-lgbti-rights-at-the-un/#commentsFri, 10 Feb 2017 18:05:34 +0000Gustavo Capdevilahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=148892The first-ever independent UN expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, Thai lawyer Vivit Muntarbhorn, has already begun the process of open and transparent consultations with individuals, social organizations and States, although some of them still object to the mandate. Muntarbhorn, an international law Professor at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, has the mission of helping protect […]

The first-ever independent UN expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, Thai lawyer Vivit Muntarbhorn, has already begun the process of open and transparent consultations with individuals, social organizations and States, although some of them still object to the mandate.

Muntarbhorn, an international law Professor at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, has the mission of helping protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people (LGBTI), who are victims of violence, hatred and discrimination in many countries.The new U.N. expert hopes to "invite a broader understanding of human diversity."

The Thai jurist, a graduate from English University of Oxford and a collaborator of several UN agencies since 1990, is now part of the special procedures system of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, which safeguards the civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, and is made up of 57 experts, 43 thematic and 17 mandated by country.

Muntarbhorn began his work at the end of January, following a contentious vote in June 2016 at the UN Human Rights Council to set the mandate that world forum agencies and social organisations have been demanding for decades. Of the 47 States that make up the Council, 21 voted in favour, 18 against and six abstained.

The approved text “was watered down by a series of amendments led by regressive countries like Russia and members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation such as Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia,” said Pooja Patel, researcher at the Geneva-based International Human Rights Service.

At the end of 2016, the independent expert’s mandate overcame other obstacles posed by African countries before the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural issues.

On the other hand, Muntarbhorn received a strong support from social organisations as well as States, mainly from Latin America and Western Europe, as well as the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Thai jurist Vitit Muntarbhorn, the UN independent expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, begins his mandate in favour of the rights of LGBTI people with an emphasis on five interrelated areas. Credit: Jena Marc Ferré / UN

The European Union’s representative, Jérôme Bellion-Jourdan, emphasised the attitude of the seven Latin American countries -Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Uruguay– which presented the original resolution to create the mandate and defended it throughout harsh debates.

Muntarbhorn acknowledged that the dissent among countries is important, but said he intends to establish consultations with all. “We are trying to strengthen and reinforce implementation of existing standards effectively,” he said in an interview with IPS.

The expert pointed out that the term “sexual orientation” is about “how we feel towards others and it’s an external dimension of what we are, while gender identity is the internal dimension of what we are, which may be different in terms of identity from the gender or sex assigned at birth. And this is very much to do with transgender persons.”

The new UN expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity faces problems such as the rejection of the African bloc, where in many countries LGBTI people suffer very harsh laws against their rights. Credit: Amy Fallon / IPS

All people have sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), he reminded, “But SOGI are part of everyone. And the sad fact is that everybody has SOGI, but those who have a different SOGI are persecuted for being different from the perceived rather strict heterosexual male/female binary norm,” Muntarbhorn noted.

“And that’s inviting a broader understanding of human diversity, which has to come from a young age. And this is one way of preventing misunderstandings and misconceptions which ultimately may lead to violence and discrimination,” he added.

The expert’s immediate agenda includes a presentation to the Human Rights Council during its next session, from Feb. 27 to Mar. 24, as well as his first evaluation visit to a country, Argentina, from Mar. 1 to 10.

In his work plan, Muntarbhorn will emphasise “five areas interrelated and mutually reinforcing that are instrumental in the protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

On decriminalisation, the expert said, “I think that there are 70 countries now that still criminalize and five to seven that still give the death penalty. This is a major concern. We need to dialogue well with these countries. ”

A 2015 ILGA report shows “Same-sex sexual acts – death penalty (13 States [or parts of]), six per cent of United Nation States.”

The death penalty for same-sex sexual behaviour codified under Sharia but not known to be implemented for same-sex behaviour specifically (5): Africa: Mauritania. Asia: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Qatar and UAE.

Muntarbhorn noted that “there are also cases of countries where there may be a law criminalizing same sex relationships, affecting particularly gays. The very same countries are also very open about transgender people. And this is the reality at local level.”

“It’s very important not to generalize too much, but to look at the specifics and to try to improve across the board with fully human rights guarantees comply with international standards,” he said.

Since the 1980s nearly 15 countries have decriminalized, “so it’s really possible. And even 10 years ago or two years ago I wouldn’t have thought that an independent expert on SOGI would be here,” Muntarbhorn said.

Regarding the destigmatization, the expert recalled that “until 1990s, even at the international level gays were classified as mentally ill, when in reality they are only part of the human biodiversity.” That year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) removed homosexuality from the list of mental diseases.

“But we still have this classification particularly as regards transgender persons and intersex persons. We want to find a way of moving forward respectful of people’s identity without stigmatizing them, without medicalizing the issue, without pathologizing the situation and classifying someone as mentally ill,” he said.

The legal recognition and gender identity is very much linked with trans persons as well as intersex persons to some extent, because trans persons want to have their identity recognized legally even though it may be a different identity from their sex at birth.

“So this also is very much linked to the compulsory surgery which is imposed on them if they wish to change their identity in several countries. But in other countries even the possibility of gender identity change is none at all,” Muntarbhorn said.

“Trans are being classified as males when they feel that they are female, they dress as female and encounter a lot of problems, including bullying, including stereotyping, including problems in bathrooms, problems going to immigration, and ultimately torture,” he said.

“A lot of transgender persons are killed even in countries that recognize transgender identity change,” he noted.

On cultural inclusion, “in the specific case of LGBTI, we have positive elements such as in some communities, transgender people are protected and valued, almost as gods and goddesses, in history,” the Thai jurist said. “But in other situations we have the negative traditional practices that kill, that harm, that persecute people who are different in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Muntarbhor found “that happens in many communities, including some application of certain interpretation of religious laws, as well as the remnants of colonial laws that used to criminalize these relationships.”

About the term of the “empathization,” the expert explained that he uses it “meaning nurturing empathy, a certain understanding, self-understanding, for other people so that we are humans.”

“And this means attitude, it means knowledge, it means mindset, and it’s to do with education, but more than education. It’s to do with socialization, it’s to do with linking up with families, communities, from a young age, so that we feel empathy, a certain understanding of those who are different from us in terms of gender and sexual diversity,” Muntarbhor concluded.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/01/trumps-global-gag-a-devastating-blow-for-womens-rights/feed/1A Women’s March on the Worldhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2017/01/a-womens-march-on-the-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-womens-march-on-the-world
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/01/a-womens-march-on-the-world/#respondFri, 20 Jan 2017 04:27:24 +0000Tharanga Yakupitiyagehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=148588Just one day after the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, hundreds of thousands of women are expected to attend one of the largest demonstrations in history for gender equality. Starting out as a social media post by a handful of concerned women, the Women’s March on Washington quickly transformed, amassing over 400 supporting organisations representing […]

Participants in the 2015 New York March for Gender Equality and Women's Rights. Credit:
UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz.

By Tharanga YakupitiyageNEW YORK, Jan 20 2017 (IPS)

Just one day after the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, hundreds of thousands of women are expected to attend one of the largest demonstrations in history for gender equality.

Starting out as a social media post by a handful of concerned women, the Women’s March on Washington quickly transformed, amassing over 400 supporting organisations representing a range of issues including affordable and accessible healthcare, gender-based violence, and racial equality.

“It’s a great show of strength and solidarity about how much women’s rights matter—and women’s rights don’t always take the front page headlines,” Nisha Varia, Advocacy Director of Human Rights Watch’s Women’s Rights Division told IPS.

Despite the variety of agendas being put forth for the march, the underlying message is that women’s rights are human rights, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA Margaret Huang told IPS.

“All people must be treated equally and with respect to their rights, no matter who is in positions of authority and who has been elected,” she said.

Organisers and partners have stressed that the march is not anti-Trump, but rather is one that is concerned about the current and future state of women’s rights.

“It’s not just about one President or one candidate, there’s a much bigger banner that we are marching for…our rights should not be subject to the whims of an election,” Kelly Baden, Center for Reproductive Rights’ Interim Senior Director of U.S. Policy and Advocacy told IPS.

The health system also risks returning to a time when many insurance plans considered pregnancy a pre-existing condition, barring women from getting full or any coverage.

“It’s about women, not Trump,” she continued.

The rhetoric used during the election is among the concerns for marchers as it reflects a troubling future for women’s rights.

During his campaign, President-elect Trump made a series of sexist remarks from calling Fox News host Megyn Kelly a “bimbo” to footage showing him boasting of sexual assault. Though Trump downplayed his remarks as “locker room talk,” his rhetoric is now being reflected in more practical terms through cabinet nominations.

Huang pointed to nominee for Attorney-General Jeff Sessions who has a long and problematic record on women’s rights including voting against the reauthorisation of the Violence Against Women Act, rejecting anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, and opposing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 which addresses pay discrimination.

During her confirmation hearing, Nominee for Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos wouldn’t say if she would uphold title IX which requires universities to act on sexual assault on campuses.

The new administration has also recently announced cuts to the Department of Justice’s Violence Against Women Grants, which distribute funds to organisations working to end sexual assault and domestic violence.

“There is no question that we’re going to have some challenges in terms of increasing protections for women’s rights over the next few years,” said Huang to IPS.

Meanwhile, Varia pointed to other hard fought gains that risk being overturned including the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA, which U.S. Congress is currently working to repeal, provides health coverage to almost 20 million Americans by prohibiting insurers from denying insurance plans due to pre-existing conditions and by providing subsidies to low-income families to purchase coverage.

If repealed, access to reproductive services such as contraception and even information will become limited. The health system also risks returning to a time when many insurance plans considered pregnancy a pre-existing condition, barring women from getting full or any coverage.

“Denying women access to the types of insurers or availability of clinics that can help them get pre-natal checks and can help them control their fertility by having access to contraception—these are all the type of holistic care that needs to be made available,” Varia said.

The U.S. is one of the few countries in the world where the number of women dying as a result of child birth is increasing, Varia noted.

In Texas, maternal mortality rates jumped from 18.8 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2010 to 35.8 deaths in 2014, the majority of whom were Hispanic and African-American women. This constitutes the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, closer in numbers to Mexico and Egypt than Italy and Japan, according to World Bank statistics.

A UN Working Group also expressed their dismay over restrictive health legislation, adding that the U.S. is falling behind international standards.

Though the ACA repeal and potential defunding of Planned Parenthood, another key reproductive services provider, threatens all women, some communities are especially in danger.

Francis Madi, a marcher and Long Island Regional Outreach Associate for the New York Immigration Coalition, told IPS that immigrant and undocumented immigrant women face additional barriers in accessing health care.

Most state and federal forms of coverage such as the ACA prohibits providing government-subsidised insurance to anyone who cannot prove a legal immigration status. Even for those who can, insurance is still hard or too expensive to acquire, making programs like Planned Parenthood essential.

“I can’t even do my job as an organiser asking for immigrant rights if I’m not able to access the services I need to live here,” Madi told IPS.

Madi highlighted the opportunity the march brings in working together through a range of issues and identities.

“I’m going because as a woman and an immigrant and an undocumented immigrant as well…it’s very important to attend this march to show we can work together on our issues,” she told IPS.

“If we don’t organize with each other, we can’t really achieve true change,” she continued.

In its policy platform, organisers of the Women’s March on Washington also stressed the importance of diversity, inclusion and intersectionality in women’s rights.

“Our liberation is bound in each other’s,” they said.

This includes not only women in the U.S., but across the world.

“There’s definitely going to be an international voice in this, not just U.S. activists,” Huang told IPS.

Marching alongside women in Washington D.C. on January 21st will be women in nearly 60 other countries participating in sister marches from Argentina to Saudi Arabia to Australia.

“Women are concerned that a loss of a champion in the U.S. government will have significant impacts in other countries,” Huang said. Of particular concern is the reinstatement of the “global gag rule” which stipulates that foreign organisations receiving any U.S. family planning funding cannot provide information or perform abortions, even with funding from other sources. The U.S. does not fund these services itself.

The policy not only restricts basic right to speech, but analysis shows that it has harmed the health of low-income women by limiting access to family planning services.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is the world’s largest family planning bilateral donor.

Though the march is important symbolic act of solidarity, it is just the first step.

“We are also part of a bigger movement—we need to come together and be in solidarity on Saturday and then we need to keep doing the hard work [during[ the long days and months and years of organising that we have ahead of us,” Baden said.